Rock the Block Recap

It is times like these that I realize that while I'm not old, I'm definitely not as young as I used to be.  I am in recoup mode from our church's "Rock the Block" this past weekend.  It was amazing time as our fellowship partnered with another one to reach out to this community with the Gospel of Jesus.  This was the first time our fellowship had done an event like this (similar to VBS or a backyard Bible club).  I believe that things went really well and many children (and their parents) heard the Gospel.

We had around 25 children of various ages on our campus Friday - Sunday.  We had music, Bible stories, crafts, games, and more.  The theme of the weekend was "Our Great B.I.G. God" based off of Ephesians 5:1.  Four main points were covered...

• A great big God who created a great big universe.


• There was a great big problem.


• In spite of our great big problem, God showed a great big love.


• God has a great big plan for our lives.

I was so encouraged as our people from New Life Fellowship, though they had not done an event like this, stepped up to serve and love on the families that God sent our way.  I can honestly say that I am honored to be the pastor at such a loving and serving fellowship.  We closed the weekend with our worship services on Sunday morning letting the children help in leading worship.  You can hear the message from that service by clicking here.

A big thanks to the crew from The Church at Brook Hills who gave up a weekend to serve alongside of us.  Three families came down and helped us pull this event off.

Now comes the hard part of the event: the follow-up.  We all are tired. We all are dragging.  God has sent these children and families our way to love on them and continue the process of sharing Jesus and discipling them.  I ask for your prayers as we continue to do the good work that God has called us to do in our community.

Read More

Pray for Rock the Block

This coming weekend, our church fellowship will be teaming with a group for The Church at Brook Hills to conduct a backyard Bible club event that we are calling "Rock the Block".  This is the VBS format that The Church at Brook Hills has used for the past few years with great success.

This is very encouraging to me on a couple of different fronts.  First, it is a beautiful picture when the body of Christ can come and do things together.  Too often churches are "competing" with one another over the same few people instead of trying to work together and reach the entire world.  Any time that fellowships can lock arms and work together, we give the world a glimpse of what heaven will look like.  If we are all going to worship and live together in eternity, then why can't the church get along here?

Another reason I am excited is that this is the first major event that our church fellowship is doing since I have been here as Pastor.  We have had a couple of little things, but nothing on the scale of this.  It is calling for all people to roll up their sleeves and pour into what God is doing.  It has been encouraging to watch and listen to people talk, discuss, plan and more about this event.

I would ask you to join us in prayer on a few things:

1. Pray that children may come.  We are the new church in the area.  We have a small children's ministry compared to some.  We are trying to get the word out about Rock the Block and hoping to see our campus flooded with children who need to hear about the Lord.


2. Pray for safety and health among the workers.  If you are in ministry, you know that during these times sickness creeps in and tries to knock people out.  We have already had some of our people hit with sicknesses of different kinds.


3. Pray for Jesus to be lifted high. When Jesus is lifted high and clearly shown to people, He will draw them to Himself (John 12:32).


4. Pray that our fellowship might be strengthened. I am looking at this event to be a shot in the arm for our people.  This is something, as a fellowship, they have never done before.  This is stretching the faith of many... and that's always a good thing.

Thank you in advance for the prayers.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for our community this weekend.  I'll try to post pictures and comments as I can.

Read More

Outreach

Okay, so our church has this program that we do called "GROW".  Basically, it is an outreach program designed to have church members go out and make visits to those who have visited our church or are new to the community.  The last week in the month has become the "youth week."  This was a result of something we did earlier in the year.  We took a month in our student ministry and showed students how to share their faith with others.  We canceled our usual "youth service" and hit the mall down the street to put our training to use.  We had about seven students show up and a great time.  They wanted to do more so we decided that we would go once a month and make contacts.

As time has gone by, there are no students showing up to this "event."  I know that there is some major tweaking that needs to happen here.  This is for those out there who are youth leaders: what do you do for outreach with your students that seems to be working?

Read More

Luau

Tonight our student ministry had a luau to start wrapping up the summer. The students will be heading back to classes in about two weeks. I realized tonight that I would also be looking to start seminary classes back here soon. I am pretty pumped about that. Back to the luau though. We were trying to use it as an outreach event, but this group has had nothing of outreach in so long. They're not really sure how to do it. That will definitely be something that we work on here in the very near future.

I also picked up my copy of the new Third Day album "Revelation," but I haven't had the chance to listen to it. It's Third Day so how bad could it be?

Read More

Out of the Box

I don't know if it's because I work in student ministry (which calls for one to be looking for new ways to share the Gospel)but I love trying things in a new way. I am also very thankful for a pastor who realizes that sometimes doing things in a different manner can be a good thing. Tonight, we took the youth to a local minor league baseball game and fireworks show. The whole intent was to get students to invite their friends who aren't involved in church anywhere. Though that didn't happen, it was a great time for the students to see me as a real person and not just their youth pastor. It is geeat because you can see them warming up to me and our family.
I encourage anyone who may read this to not get in a rut of doing things the same old way. Look for new ways to accomplish the same purposes. It will help you to see the "why" behind the "what," and also help you to grow a little by stretching you.

Read More